NHTSA Spent 15 Months Investigating Actually Smart Summon. Here's What They Found.
NHTSA officially closed its investigation into Tesla's Actually Smart Summon feature, and the headline numbers are less alarming than the probe itself suggested. After reviewing 159 incidents across roughly 2.59 million equipped vehicles, the agency found zero injuries, zero fatalities, and only minor property damage across every single case. No recall requested. Case closed.
What the investigation actually covered
The preliminary investigation opened in January 2025 and covered Model S, Model X, Model 3, and Model Y vehicles equipped with Actually Smart Summon (not available on the Cybertruck, for the record). That's a large installed base, and 15 months is a long time to examine a feature that lets owners remotely move a parked car short distances in parking lots or on private property.
NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation reviewed those 159 incidents and called them "extremely rare," describing the occurrence rate as a fraction of one percent across millions of Summon sessions. All of them happened at very low speeds. No injuries. Just property damage, and apparently not serious property damage at that.
Tesla kept pushing updates during the probe
This part is worth paying attention to. While NHTSA was investigating, Tesla deployed at least six OTA updates targeting the underlying systems, including camera-based object detection, neural network performance for obstacle recognition, and system response to potential hazards. Actually Smart Summon runs on Tesla's vision-only FSD stack, so improvements to that stack feed directly into Summon's real-world performance.
Whether those updates influenced NHTSA's decision to close without a recall is hard to say. But six updates across 15 months is genuine iterative improvement, not theater.
The timing is a little odd, given the Model S and X situation
Two of the four vehicle lines covered by the investigation, Model S and Model X, are no longer in production. Tesla ended production of both. And in what looks like a final-inventory move, Tesla raised prices on all remaining new and demo S and X units by approximately $15,000 across the board.
Current pricing: Model S AWD at $109,990, Model S Plaid at $124,900, Model X AWD at $114,900, Model X Plaid at $129,900. All remaining inventory includes the Luxe Package, Full Self-Driving Supervised, four years of premium connectivity and service, and lifetime free Supercharging. That's a real bundle at a real price. But it also reads like Tesla pricing its way to an empty lot before closing the door on both models.
What this means for Summon users
The NHTSA closure without a recall is the best possible outcome for anyone who actually uses Actually Smart Summon. The feature has its quirks, but the safety record across millions of sessions is hard to argue with.
Zero injuries across 2.59 million vehicles and 159 reviewed incidents is the kind of data that ends investigations. The vision-only FSD stack powering Summon keeps improving. That's the real story here, more than the probe itself.
Source: Teslarati